What? Are you kidding me? How can it be?
How can it be that after all this time, after all this fighting, scratching, clawing - 2,000 years of battling our way back to Eretz Yisrael - how can it be that so many people are doubting the prospects of Aliyah now, "just" because of the horrors we witnessed in Amona last week?
I simply don't understand it.
I mean, check out Arutz Sheva's comments section. It's crazy. Comment after comment talking about wanting to make Aliyah, but now, after Amona and Gush Katif, this place, this state, this land of ours is not what they thought it was.
Give me a break. What do you think this is? This is not your favorite team trading away its best player. It's not a character leaving your favorite sitcom. This is your homeland.
But rather than take you through the rationale for moving here, and explaining that you will then be able to change the system, and that by making Aliyah, you will have a vote and can make of this country whatever you want, etc. etc., I've decided to not waste your valuable time (although all that is true!). I have a different line of thinking regarding this. Wanna' hear it? Yeah? Okay. Here goes:
You're all full of baloney. Because you don't really want to live in the land promised to our forefathers. You want to live here if it's easy. And you don't really believe that we are knee-deep in a very serious process of redemption here, that we are feeling the birth pangs of the arrival of the Mashiach. You'd rather leave that kind of "weird" spiritual thinking to the lunatics who already moved here.
I know what you're thinking because I was one of you. I worked for an Internet start-up in 1999-2000, and I said to family and friends, "If we go public and I make $10 million, then I'm moving to Israel." And you know what? I meant it. And this dot-com had a chance. But I knew it was unlikely to happen. So, I convinced myself to feel good about my Zionism. After all, as long as Wall Street cooperated, I had committed myself to making Aliyah. But I also had an out. And when that dot-com tanked, and I was out of a job (never mind out the $10 million), Aliyah was gone as well.
So, I've been there. I've put forth the "effort" to investigate Aliyah, only to walk away from it as soon as something didn't go the right way. And guess what, far greater men than I have been there, too. Far greater. And they had their reasons, too. You may have heard about it.
You know what they said? They said the existing inhabitants of the land were powerful giants. They said the cities were surrounded by high walls, and that the land devours its inhabitants.
So, here we are, 3,000-plus years later, and we're doing it all over again. But there's a major difference this time around. This time, some of us live here. And we can tell you the truth. So listen up.
The spies were right. People like Ehud Olmert are giants, as are the miserable human beings he sent into Amona last week. And the cities are once again surrounded by high walls, this time for supposed "security". And this place, well, what can I tell you. When you live here, you are gobbled up by the land. Gobbled up by the politics, by the religious polarization, by the culture, by the food. It's an unbelievably intense place.
And when you live in a place that is this intense, that has this kind of meaning, things happen. Big things happen. Some very good, like watching my kids growing up fluent in Hebrew, which will enable them to learn as much Torah as they want with no language barriers; and like how beautiful it is to watch your child's birthday being celebrated in school. And some very bad, like the events of this summer and last week.
Because when you live in a meaningful place, a land with real depth, you don't have to manufacture intensity. There is no Super Bowl Sunday here, where us vs. them is manufactured. No Valentine's Day, where love is manufactured. No Thanksgiving Day, where family relationships are manufactured.
There's just reality. And it's intense. And it's sometimes horrible. And it takes its toll.
But I have to tell you, after 2,000 years, after generation upon generation wishing, dreaming, shouting to HaShem, after so many Jewish deaths because we didn't have a land of our own, we olim will take the land as it is - because it's ours, because we see our kids growing up happy, because we can read the prayers without feeling like hypocrites; but especially because we've heard how this story ends.
How can it be that after all this time, after all this fighting, scratching, clawing - 2,000 years of battling our way back to Eretz Yisrael - how can it be that so many people are doubting the prospects of Aliyah now, "just" because of the horrors we witnessed in Amona last week?
I simply don't understand it.
I mean, check out Arutz Sheva's comments section. It's crazy. Comment after comment talking about wanting to make Aliyah, but now, after Amona and Gush Katif, this place, this state, this land of ours is not what they thought it was.
Give me a break. What do you think this is? This is not your favorite team trading away its best player. It's not a character leaving your favorite sitcom. This is your homeland.
But rather than take you through the rationale for moving here, and explaining that you will then be able to change the system, and that by making Aliyah, you will have a vote and can make of this country whatever you want, etc. etc., I've decided to not waste your valuable time (although all that is true!). I have a different line of thinking regarding this. Wanna' hear it? Yeah? Okay. Here goes:
You're all full of baloney. Because you don't really want to live in the land promised to our forefathers. You want to live here if it's easy. And you don't really believe that we are knee-deep in a very serious process of redemption here, that we are feeling the birth pangs of the arrival of the Mashiach. You'd rather leave that kind of "weird" spiritual thinking to the lunatics who already moved here.
I know what you're thinking because I was one of you. I worked for an Internet start-up in 1999-2000, and I said to family and friends, "If we go public and I make $10 million, then I'm moving to Israel." And you know what? I meant it. And this dot-com had a chance. But I knew it was unlikely to happen. So, I convinced myself to feel good about my Zionism. After all, as long as Wall Street cooperated, I had committed myself to making Aliyah. But I also had an out. And when that dot-com tanked, and I was out of a job (never mind out the $10 million), Aliyah was gone as well.
So, I've been there. I've put forth the "effort" to investigate Aliyah, only to walk away from it as soon as something didn't go the right way. And guess what, far greater men than I have been there, too. Far greater. And they had their reasons, too. You may have heard about it.
You know what they said? They said the existing inhabitants of the land were powerful giants. They said the cities were surrounded by high walls, and that the land devours its inhabitants.
So, here we are, 3,000-plus years later, and we're doing it all over again. But there's a major difference this time around. This time, some of us live here. And we can tell you the truth. So listen up.
The spies were right. People like Ehud Olmert are giants, as are the miserable human beings he sent into Amona last week. And the cities are once again surrounded by high walls, this time for supposed "security". And this place, well, what can I tell you. When you live here, you are gobbled up by the land. Gobbled up by the politics, by the religious polarization, by the culture, by the food. It's an unbelievably intense place.
And when you live in a place that is this intense, that has this kind of meaning, things happen. Big things happen. Some very good, like watching my kids growing up fluent in Hebrew, which will enable them to learn as much Torah as they want with no language barriers; and like how beautiful it is to watch your child's birthday being celebrated in school. And some very bad, like the events of this summer and last week.
Because when you live in a meaningful place, a land with real depth, you don't have to manufacture intensity. There is no Super Bowl Sunday here, where us vs. them is manufactured. No Valentine's Day, where love is manufactured. No Thanksgiving Day, where family relationships are manufactured.
There's just reality. And it's intense. And it's sometimes horrible. And it takes its toll.
But I have to tell you, after 2,000 years, after generation upon generation wishing, dreaming, shouting to HaShem, after so many Jewish deaths because we didn't have a land of our own, we olim will take the land as it is - because it's ours, because we see our kids growing up happy, because we can read the prayers without feeling like hypocrites; but especially because we've heard how this story ends.